The story of Pacifica Cassul, the poison that will destroy the world, ends with the sixth volume of Scrapped Princess.  The final volume wraps up this fantasy series very well, explaining just who and what Pacifica is, what will happen when she turns sixteen, and why.  An entertaining program, this last set of shows are a fitting end.

Series Synopsis:

Fifteen years ago the "revelation of St. Grendel" predicted that a princess had been born who would destroy the world when she reached 16 years of age.  "She will be give rise to mountains of corpses and rivers of blood...she will be the poison that will destroy this world." St. Grendel's predictions had always come true, so her parents, the king and queen of a large country, ordered her put to death.  She wasn't however.  Like Snow White, the person who was supposed to kill her took pity on the baby and let her live.

Now Pacifica Cassul is 15, and running for her life.  She is the person that everyone thinks is the 'Scrapped Princess' of the prophecy.  Living out of a horse drawn wagon, Pacifica travels from place to place with her adopted brother, Shannon, her sister, Raquel, and Leo a young knight wanna-be.  All of them hoping to stay one step ahead of those who are trying to kill Pacifica.

With only days before her 16th birthday the Peacemakers, mysterious aliens who want to see Pacifica dead, are giving one last push to find the girl from the prophecy and kill her.  Can her siblings keep her safe for that long?

This volume:

This final volume was a little unexpected in a few ways.  The disc starts with a pitched battle between the Peacekeepers and Shannon along with a desperate escape as Pacifica is aided out of the royal castle just as the order comes down to kill her.  The series down shifts after that, and the last episodes aren't just one action packed battle scene after another as one might expect.  Both sides take some time to regroup, with the Cassul's and company hiding out and the royal forces helping get the city back to normal after the battle.

During this down time Pacifica meets up with some old friends who've come to help her, including some whom we haven't seen for a while.  Even though she is surrounded by friends that want to help her, the young girl still has doubts.  What will happen to her in a few days when she turns 16?  Wouldn't it be better if she just died so there wouldn't be any danger of the world ending, or at least any of her friends dying trying to protect her?  Luckily Shannon has an interesting way of breaking her out of this funk.

Of course this quite time can't last forever.  As the Royal Guard learns of the Scrapped Princess' whereabouts, she also gets an odd invitation; to meet her twin brother, the crowned prince.  He's never seen is sister, and can't believe that she'd cause anyone pain.  But is this a simple meeting, or a trap?

There aren't too many fantasy anime series being released, and it's a shame.  This one is very enjoyable and manages to sidestep most of the cliches that sword and sorcery programs usually fall into.  This story has familiar trappings that makes it easy for viewers to get involved, but there are enough new plot elements to keep fans entertained and guessing what will happen next.

Surprisingly, the slower pace for this last volume really fit the show well.  This series, though it did have its share of action, wasn't a really an adventure show.  It was more about the relationship between Pacifica and the people that she met. I was expecting an all out battle royale in this last volume, but the direction the creators took the show was the right one.  They tied together all of the loose ends very nicely and answered all of the questions that viewers had, while also staying true to the rest of the series (and including some fun battles.)  This was a well done conclusion to a very good show.

Audio:

This disc has the original Japanese track and an English dub both in stereo.  There wasn't a lot of directionality to the mix, but being a dialog based show, I wasn't expecting many stereo effects.  Both tracks sounded adequate, with the background music being clear and clean.

Video:

The full frame video image looked good.  The image had a good amount of definition and detail, and the colors were accurately reproduced.  There was some minor digital defects, some shimmering lines in the background and a little aliasing mainly.  A few areas had bad color gradients, where the colors didn't transfer smoothly from one shade to the next.  These weren't major problems though.  An adequate looking transfer.

Extras:

Like the other volumes in this series, this disc didn't have any extras aside from some trailers.

Final Thoughts:

I was really pleased with the way this series ended.  The show gets wrapped up nicely in this volume with all of the various plot thread coming together in neat and sometimes unexpected ways.  One of the handful of fantasy titles that have come out recently, Scrapped Princess does the genre proud with an intelligent story and endearing characters.  If you haven't been following this series, you should definitely consider picking it up.  Highly Recommended.